


Family Photos

by heffermonkey



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, Dysfunctional Family, Family, M/M, Nostalgia, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2695907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heffermonkey/pseuds/heffermonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny finds some old photographs in the garage that reveal on old McGarrett Christmas Tradition</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Photos

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 1MW Hurt Me/Heal Me challenge - Forgotten Traditions

“Oh, oh what is this?” Danny exclaimed with glee, rummaging through a box as they tackle the clear out of the garage. “Oh this is – jackpot!”

Steve grimaced just at the sound of his voice, not wanting to see what fresh device Danny had found to torture him with. What had convinced him that clearing out the garage with Danny was a good idea? Turning he found Danny digging out old photos, although which ones they were he didn’t know – yet. Danny was looking through them with a huge grin on his face which told Steve the photos were old and embarrassing.

“Ah man,” Danny laughed, looking up at him. “There are family photos and then there are family photos. My mom was lucky if we sat still for five minutes altogether at Christmas, never mind posed for what looks like an annual Christmas card collection.”

He held one up at Steve and actually cooed in delight, “Steven, you were adorable. But Mary, oh my god you could die from the cute!”

It was a picture from when they were very young, Mary a baby in their moms arms and Steve five or six, perched on his dads knee. They all wore matching sweaters, grotesquely Christmassy, like an elf had spewed tinsel and decorations all over them.

“And look, there’s one for every year!” Danny said, waving a handful at him. “How have I never seen these?”

Steve took them out of his hand, looking through a few and glancing at Danny who was digging around in the box again.

“Uh, I’m just gonna -,” Steve started saying, backing up to the door and escaping before Danny could notice he wasn’t sounding as enthusiastically nostalgic as perhaps he should. In the privacy of the house he leafed through the photos again, piecing them together into chronological order. In each one he and Mary aged year by year, in each one they all wore matching Christmas sweaters. In each one his Mom and Dad looked happy, content – like they were the perfect family unit.

Steve stared at Doris in each one, studying every picture like it would give him some clue of the real person underneath. The woman who, once he reached the age of fifteen, decided to get out of his life, get out of their lives. How long had she planned leaving? How long had it taken to make the decision and put it into effect?

He found the last photo of them as a family. He would have been fourteen, Mary was ten – he looked at his younger self, looking less impressed than his parents that he had to parade in the Christmas sweaterr and act all goofy. It had been a family tradition and even though he’d acted like he was too old for such practices, he remembered secretly loving the old tradition. It just made Christmas all the more special somehow. Steve thought maybe, if he’d known it would be the last family Christmas picture they took, he’d have looked happier, would have joined in with less teenage attitude.

He gazed at his mother, wondered if at that point she knew within a few months, she’d be abandoning them all. He looked at his dad, who hadn’t ever known his wife was still alive, that it had all been a cover up. That his entire marriage had been to a woman who’d lied to him from the beginning about who she really was. A woman who was quite capable of making herself disappear, leaving him to deal with the fallout.

“Babe?” Danny asked from behind him. Steve tensed a moment in surprise, having not heard Danny join him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, great,” Steve said, putting a smile on his face before turning to him. “Hey how about we take a break?”

Danny looked at him with a cynical eye and glanced down at the photos he was holding, “How about we take a break and you tell me the truth?”

“It’s nothing Danny, really,” Steve shook his head, going into the kitchen. He put the photos on the counter and each one reminded him of his thoughts. “No, that’s a lie – I just – I don’t know that I want to talk about it.”

“It’s okay, if you don’t want to,” Danny assured him. “Just as long as you know that I’m here if you need to.”

“I just can’t see that talking about it would make a difference,” Steve said, looking over at him sadly. “Those photos, I forgot all about them if I’m honest. Or maybe I just put it to the back of my mind, an old tradition I haven’t thought about in years. I mean look at them, there’s fourteen of them Danny. Fourteen. Look at my mom and dad, look at how happy we all are.”

Steve lifted a few before putting them down again, pushing them aside and shaking his head.

“It was all just a lie, all of it,” He sagged against the counter as the kettle came to the boil nearby.

“This is about Doris,” Danny said knowingly, coming closer to him.

“That last one,” Steve said, motioning to it. “I look at it and all I can think is, did she know she was going to ‘die’ in a few months’ time? Did she have it all planned that far in advance? Because you don’t just disappear like she did without a plan of action Danny. It wasn’t something she just thought of doing a few days before. She knew she was leaving us, she knew and – and I, I just fucking-.”

He fell silent, because the words wouldn’t come or refused to be said. He still didn’t understand, he couldn’t process the reason, justify it enough to forgive her. He’d tried to forge some kind of relationship, but it felt so fake, like he’d been grasping at the idea of having a mother again because it had hurt so much when she’d gone. When he thought she’d died. The grief had never left, which made finding out she was alive a painful experience all on its own. He still grieved, because the mother he’d found wasn’t the mother he’d lost and he didn’t know how to combine the two. And before he’d began processing Doris and her reasons, she’d disappeared again, leaving a thousands of questions in her wake. Steve had resigned himself to never knowing or understanding who she really was.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said simply, putting an arm around him. “I’m sorry she put you through shit. I’m sorry that it makes old memories, old traditions, painful to think about. And I’m sorry I poked fun, I didn’t think-.”

“Don’t apologise for that,” Steve said with a small smile. “Have you seen those sweaters? They’re the worst.”

“Well, Mary looked cute,” Danny said lightly. “You look tragic, especially the older you got.”

“Hey, I was a looker,” Steve retorted, digging Danny with his elbow. 

“Uh uh babe,” Danny shook his head, with a teasing glint in his eye. “I’m sorry but – nope.”

“So this isn’t a tradition we can begin again with Grace Face?” Steve asked with a laugh.

Danny snorted and grinned up at him, “Babe, my daughter may be all sweet and innocent and full of delight. But can you honestly say she’d wear one of those god-awful sweaters and have her photo taken for the whole world to see? Even she has limits to her sweet nature.”

“Guess not,” Steve agreed. “Can’t say I’m eager myself to wear anything looking like that again. We live in Hawaii for fuck sakes, I have no idea where they even found those sweaters!”

“I know right?!” Danny laughed. “And a different one every year.”

Steve fell quiet, picking up one of the photos and peering at with a soft, sad look in his eyes, before he placed it down and pushed it away a little, like he was laying it to rest.  
“Want me to put them away?” Danny asked, gathering them up into a pile on the counter.

“Yeah, you can,” Steve nodded quickly without looking at them again.

Danny picked them up and turned to leave before he paused and put a hand on the small of Steve’s back. “Maybe this Christmas we can take some family photos and make our own traditions.”  
Steve gave a small smile and nodded, “Yeah, maybe. Thanks Danno.”

~fin~


End file.
